The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
When he/she (alcoholic) is in recovery and attending to their own growth and I am not.
This is something China woke me up to; an experience I use to witness in the past (Don't focus on it now) and have seen happen in the area I got into recovery. The alcoholic got sober and grew, often very well, in recovery and as a result out-grew their spouse or partner and the marriage or partnership wilted and died. It comes from continuing to place all of the responsibility first on the sick person and then on a well person who no longer wants to carry the whole package just like me when I first got here. I didn't want to carry my practicing alcoholics part of the marriage and I got into Al-Anon and she didn't get back into AA...the marriage died and it also happens in reverse to. Mobirdie mentioned that the AA's in her area are very supportive of her founding a new daytime Al-Anon meeting; wonder why? They do get well and sometimes we don't.
Thanks China for the nudge and Mobirdie for the example of service..."When anyone,anywhere reaches out for help; let the hand of Al-Anon a l w a y s be there and let it begin with me."
Yep, yep.... Jerry - I may have shared the story before, when my wife was at a Treatment facility, and after I had told one of her counselors that I "secretly hoped she would drink again, so I could honorably leave the marriage", he replied with: "of course you do, then you can continue to blame your wife for everything wrong in your life, and not take accountability for anything!"
He was so right, and as many meetings and books I had done/read, I really hadn't "chosen" recovery for myself, up until that point....
Thanks for the nice reminder....
I always like things that make us take our own inventory, and the gentle mirror approach..... one of my new made-up sayings is:
"self-reflection is healthy, self-mutilation is not"
Take care Tom
__________________
"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
Thank You Jerry, I think this is a very important topic, and this was my overwhelming experience as well. I have spent most of my adult life in a "recovery" setting since getting sober at 27, not all of it mind you, but the overwhelming majority of it, so the experience I have with alcoholics is that of watching them recover for the most part, not my family, which is how I discovered Al-anon, but all of my peers.
I remember when I was a few years sober standing in front of my girlfriend as she lost her mind, I was watching her lips move, and there was quite a bit of noise coming out, but as she was yelling at me for my latest transgression I had an epiphany, I realized it wasn't me any more. I wasn't "the problem" any more.
In the previous 30 months I had quit drinking, quit smoking, gotten a job I hated, I had become a neat freak, and was taking 24 units at college all to make her happy.
I all of the sudden visualized I was a lighthouse, and she was the ocean, dashing herself to pieces on the rocks around my feet and as she was yelling at me I started talking, "It's not me hon"
WHAT!!??!!??!?!?!!
"I said it's not me, I'm out of things to fix, I'm not the problem any more, I have become the man you always wanted and you have never been unhappier."
She looked at me and understanding flooded her eyes, and she started crying inconsolably, that moment was her bottom.
Thus began the rounds to couples counselors, and after one or two sessions she would decide she didn't like the therapist. The sessions all looked the same, "Here Andrew, here are some tools."
"oooooh, shiny!!!"
"Hi Margo, here is a mirror."
AAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!
WE NEED A NEW THERAPIST THIS IS BS, DID YOU SEE THE THERAPIST TAKING SIDES??? WE NEED A THERAPIST THAT KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT!!!!!
She finally started attending Coda, and seeing a therapist on her own, things changed in my life as well, until we had the final exit interview.
The truth was, she never really liked me, she didn't know that though, but as long as there was one. more. thing. to focus on, she never even realized she didn't like me, because she was focused on "fixing" me for ten years.
We became much better friends after she ran off with that married man then we ever were as partners.
Now none of this would have meant a great deal if I hadn't subsequently seen the same dynamic dozens upon dozens of times with my sponsees, it didn't turn out to be the exception it turned out to be the norm.
The sad thing?
15 years later it was me trying to "fix" and change my partner, and hitting my codependent bottom and because of my untreated codependency becoming someone I hated, far more then I hated the person I was that drank.
Another thing? Addressing my codependency was far more difficult and confusing then addressing my alcoholism.
I mean it took me nearly 20 years to understand what I was doing wrong about boundaries, because they seemed to work on healthy people, but they didn't work on unhealthy people. This confused me to no end. I studied boundaries, I wrote about boundaries, I read books about boundaries, and they still didn't work on unhealthy people!!!!
It took me nearly two decades to figure out standing in front of somebody saying the same thing over and over and over and over wasn't actually a boundary, it was an attempt at behavior modification, and this is after books, and classes and meetings for YEARS
Codependency is a bear in my experience, it was a confusing and painful experience, and the truth of the matter is codependency has caused just as my damage in my family of origin and childhood as alcoholism ever did.
It was just harder to spot, and harder to recover from for me.
I don't post here very often, but my heart goes out to all of you actively addressing your own codependency, it was so very very hard for me to figure out when the "problem" was so obviously "over there" for so many years, and this was with a few decades of meetings under my belt, so I should have known better I thought.
-- Edited by AGO on Thursday 1st of April 2010 02:49:28 PM
Jerry, would you agree that everyones experience with the A is different.
After being married to the A for three years, I joined the H.O.W. program of overeaters annomynous to work on myself, got a sponsor, worked the 12 steps, did that for a year, then I joined Al-anon, that was in "87", the A stoped drinking at intervals, but for never very long. I went very strong with Al-anon in "93" and continued to work it , had a great sponsor , worked the program in Orange County, really strong programs there, especially in Anahem, meetings of 2 to 300, mostly women. I have always worked the program, with the A, getting progressively worse. I guess I was working it correctly, because it took almost 26 years for him to hit a bottom. A bottom that crossed my boundaries, and we parted ways. He still continued to drink for a year, where he almost died, but he is sober finally. But Im way past it.
They dont always recover that soon, I know its not about us, but the topic is about the A. Some A's will not surrender and death is their bottom. My A, simply would not surrender . I hope he continues his sobriety for his own sake.
It was my choice to stay, but I never gave up hope of his finding sobriety, whether I was with him or not. Im open to your responses. I dont and will never have all the answers to this mystery called life. Here's to strength, courage, hope and wisdom. Bettina
-- Edited by Bettina on Thursday 1st of April 2010 03:40:58 PM
It has been my choice to stay with my AH (of 38 years) - although I have detached emotionally .... almost!
I have loved him unresevedly for more than 30 years but in recent years he has sysematically destroyed that love. Even if he were to come through this and out the other side I don't think I will ever love him in the same way again. I feel he has betrayed our love and there is no going back.
The fear of getting well and having to make choices can stop alot of people from recovering...i know my SIL is scared to death that if she gets well emotionally she will no longer need my brother........we dont always see life as it is...but as we are...
It is hard to put in so many years of caretaking and fixing, insanity and hopelessness, and then to find that the victim/martyr role is no longer needed or appropriate. I think I got quite a bit of attention from the 'poor me's'. And getting out of the habit of being in my AH's head and checking if all there is how it should be AGGGHHHHHHHH Its all shortcomings that I have to work on in steps 6 and 7
I was never comfortable with the idea of being a victim really but the whole process of living with active alcoholism was very time consuming. Sobriety came at the same time as my adult children leaving home. My career path has been destroyed. ( by my own health issues, not necessarilly by alcoholism) Alcoholism took my house, my social circle and my health And I am not an alcoholic lol So what AM I left with. I use service to give myself a role in life. I have replaced my social circle with Alanon friends. But at times I am screaming that I want a life that is not tied up in alchoholism and Alanon. I want to be free of it!!!!!
An AA friend has told me that the 12 steps is supposed to be a bridge to normal living and not a replacement for it. I think that has helped me.
I have actually cut down on some of the meetings I was going to and begun looking at other activities, because my sponsor suggested it!!!! ( I still go to at least one a week)
I think its all about balance. The 12 steps are my code for living now and step 12 dictates that I reach out to others ( keeping perspective....I have come un-stuck there too. Newcomers need meetings and NOT me). But it doesn't mean I should develop a fear of non alanon people. Everyone is in recovery of some description and they have to find their own code for living. Its not my job to teach them, lead them into recovery programs or to promote the 12 step way of life. The 11th tradition says attraction rather than promotion. If people ask me why I am calmer I will tell them, but Live and Let Live....its not for everyone.
( OMG writing this is showing me just how co dependant I really am!!!)
Its ok to find something else and to develop who I am as a person in my own right. So I'm getting to know my local neighbourhood, looking at a writing course, going for country walks and enjoying nature, just because its there.... and researching my health condition so that I can be the best I can be....For one day only of course.
When I'm working at being healthy it can ony help my relationship with my recovering husband?
Is this making sense??? Its what I am working on right now. Thanks for bringing it up as a subject Jerry
I relate to what you said about being betrayed, not just once, but over and over.
Like I said, Im way past it, but Al-anon is good for the soul and I dont ever , think I could everslip and go back ,I want to help and encourage members and Myself!!!
Some of the responses seem like I tripped over a whole bunch of buttons. I'll clarify a bit but just a bit. From my experiences I have watched a spouse or partner in recovery outgrow (more able at living and behaving in a sane manner) than the partner who is not in recovery. The one not in recovery may have wanted the spouse/partner to get changed badly which they did which left the other stuck in their own sick stuff.
That it doesn't always happen is something to be grateful for huh?
I like what Dream gave up in that fear can cause people not to attempt a change. What ever the reason the one working a program of recovery can and often does outgrow the other. How could they not? If nothing changes ---Nothing changes.
Hi jerry, I can relate to this post I went in to al anon 18 months before my partner went into Aa I changed I decided to leave I laernt a lot and relasied I could not hlp him infact I was going under with him. He decided to try AA. But then something happened once the drinkig disaprreared and he started to get a little healthier my behaviour wa still crazy at times. I can now see that I am just as ill. We are bot in programmes today and I do not know if our relationship will survive as we both grow and develop it depends if it is gods wil. As stated before Alcoholism is a family disease if the A get help in AA and changes their attitudes they get better. But the spouse also needs their al anon medicine if they are to recover. In Liverpool al anon numbers are dropping this is very scary as there should really be more people in al anon than aa as one persons drinking can affect a whole family.
